Sunday, June 7, 2015

day 6: Zip-lines, Waterfalls, and Toffee

Well, did I mention that the amazon is humid? Well it is,
and normally we would have the fan going all night to keep a nice breeze on us
but last night the fan started making a squealing noise so we had to turn it
off to actually sleep but yeah now we had to sleep with humidity. Sorry I had
to complain about that.

We caught a canoe back to the main land and jumped on the
bus to head to the Devil’s Canyon.On
the way our guide stopped to buy some sugar cane, and gave us a piece. I’ve
never had it before, it was like a tightly woven sponge filled with sweet
water, all you had to do was crush and suck out the juice. It was really
interesting and tasty, but not my favorite.

We got to Devil’s Canyon next; this is a huge waterfall
surrounded by black lava rock. There was a trail leading down to the base of
the waterfall.We had to go over a
suspension bridge to get there but it was so worth it!

this was the top of the falls

on the way down

we had to go over a couple of suspension bridges to get to the bottom

We had a boxed lunch at that location. We tried their roasted
corn on the cob which was really good.

After lunch we went to a canyon where we went on a basket/
zip line ride across the canyon. That was fun, and it only cost around 6 bucks
to go. It was pretty fast too; and the view was spectacular!

We then went to another town with a cool church; the
building was made from the volcanic rock surrounding the area. It was cool but
kinda dark.

What was really fun about the town was the food we got to
try there.

First there was the toffee, which was being pulled right in
front of the store, they even let us try it. It was super good and the toffee
was cheap, a big bag was only a dollar.

Then, I tried guinea pig. They had the poor creatures being
roast right out at the front. It tasted like chicken, or pork…or both. Well
it’s just another animal I got to try.

We then went to the seed shop; here they care seeds into
jewelry and figurines. They say it is the same quality as ivory and they even
had a presentation of someone carving one of the seeds into a little pot. It
was really cool and again everything was cheep there. So I got a jewelry set
and it was under ten bucks. Amazing!

We then headed to a chocolate shop, which was closed so we
checked out a small market. Nothing different but it was a cool looking alley.

The shop opened up just as we were about to leave so we got
in and honestly it wasn’t that impressive. The chocolate was ok, still am bias
toward swiss chocolate :)

We then all jumped in the bus to our next hotel, which was a
small-secluded bed and breakfast place up in the mountains. The place was
called Hancienda Monteles. Beautiful location, on the way we passed an active
volcano spewing out clouds of white smoking stuff. Nothing dangerous, but
beautiful.

It's a volcano!

When we arrived at the BB, we had a couple hours till dinner
so we decided to walk down the road we had come up. This was made more fun by
those who accompanied us. The three dogs that lived at the BB walked with us
the whole way down the mountain and back up. Two goldies and a beagle and a
chocolate lab, They were fun to have along, but we did have some trouble when
we passed some neighbors with chickens. The beagle went crazy and chased the
chickens. Not a good situation and we weren’t sure how to control the situation
since they weren’t our dogs. They just followed us; though we did figure that
clapping caught their attention. We learned later that the beagle has had a lot
of trouble with chickens, even killing some. Not good; no chickens were harmed
on our walk though. They just got a lot of exercise.

When we got back we had dinner; we each got something
different so we could share and try lots of different food. They also had a
really tasty cinnamon tea. So good and apparently easy to make, I am going to
have to try it.

Before bed we had our final round of five deck and dad and I
won. Whoot!